hint of his humour, which was lambent and sometimes almost boyish. He
loved to be amused, and he repaid his entertainer by being amusing. I
suppose that after his return from Cairo he allowed this feature of his
character a much freer run. The legend used to be that he was looked
upon in Egypt as rather grim, and by no means to be trifled with. He was
not the man, we may be sure, to be funny with a Young Turk, or to crack
needless jokes with a recalcitrant Khedive. But retirement softened him,
and the real nature of Lord Cromer, with its elements of geniality and
sportiveness, came into full play.
Eight years ago, I regret to admit, Mr. Lloyd George was not the
universal favourite in the House of Lords that he has since become. Lord
Cromer was one of those who were not entirely reconciled to the
financial projects of the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. He compared
the Chancellor with Pescennius Niger,
"who aspired to be Emperor after the death of Pertinax, and was
already Governor of Syria. On being asked by the inhabitants of
that province to diminish the land tax, he replied that, so far as
he was concerned, not only would he effect no diminution, but he
regretted that he could not tax the air which they breathed."
The strained relations between Mr. Lloyd George and the House of Lords
inspired Lord Cromer with a really delightful parallel from Dryden's
_Absalom and Achitophel_ (which, by the way, was one of his favourite
poems):--
"Thus, worn or weakened, well or ill content,
Submit they must to DAVID'S government;
Impoverished and deprived of all command,
Their taxes doubled as they lost their land;
And--what was harder yet to flesh and blood,
Their gods disgraced, and burnt like common wood."
When he pointed this out to me, I entreated him to introduce it into a
speech on the Budget. But he said that he was not sure of his audience,
and then it was most painful to an orator to make a literary reference
which was not taken up. Once at Sheffield, when he was urging the
necessity of a strong Navy upon a large public meeting, he quoted
Swinburne's splendid lines:--
"All our past comes wailing in the wind,
And all our future thunders on the sea,"
without producing any effect at all. But the House of Lords is not an
illiterate audience, and I recollect that on one occasion, when Lord
Cromer himself was speaking on preferential treatment for the Colonies,
and quoted Prior:--
"Euphemia (that is Preference) serves to grace my measure,
But Chloe (that is Protection) is my real flame,"
the Peers received the couplet with hilarious appreciation.
He was very entertaining about the oddities of his life in the East, and
his stories were numberless. One was of a petition which he once
received from a young Egyptian with a grievance, which opened with these
words:--
"O Hell! Lordship's face grow red when he hear quite ghastly
behaviour of Public Works Department towards our humble servant."
He used to repeat these things with an inimitable chuckle of enjoyment.
We have been told that he who blows through bronze may breathe through
silver. The severe preoccupations of Lord Cromer's public life did not
prevent him from sedulously cultivating the art of verse. In 1903,
before his retirement from Egypt, he published a volume of _Paraphrases
and Translations from the Greek_, in the preparation or selection of
which I believe that he enjoyed the advice of Mr. Mackail. It was rather
unlucky that, with a view to propitiate the angry critics, Lord Cromer
prefixed to this little book a preface needlessly modest. He had no
cause to apologise so deeply for exercises which were both elegant and
learned. It is a curious fact that, in this collection of paraphrases,
the translator did not touch the Attic authors whom he knew so well--he
used to copy out pages of AEschylus and Sophocles in his loose Greek
script, with notes of his own--but dealt entirely with lyric and
epigrammatic poets of the Alexandrian age. Perhaps it seemed to him less
daring to touch them than to affront AEschylus. He was not quite sure
about these verses of his; he liked them, and then he was afraid that
they were unworthy of the original. Out in Cairo it was so difficult, he
said, to get a critical opinion.
Among his unpublished translations there is one, from a fragment of
Euripides, which should not be lost, if only because Lord Cromer himself
liked it better than any other of his versions. It runs:--
"I learn what may be taught;
I seek what may be sought;
My other wants I dare
To ask from Heaven in prayer."
Of his satirical _vers-de-societe_, which it amused him to distribute in
private, he never, I believe, gave any to the world, but they deserve
preservation. Some serious reflections on the advantages of the British
occupation of Egypt close with the quotation:--
"Let them suffice for Britain's need--
No nobler prize was ever won--
The blessings of a people freed,
The consciousness of duty done."
These were, in a high degree, the rewards of Lord Cromer himself.
After his settlement in London, Mr. T.E. Page sent him a book, called
_Between Whiles_, of English verse translated into Latin and Greek. Lord
Cromer was delighted with this, and the desire to write in metre
returned to him. He used to send his friends, in letters, little
triolets and epigrams, generally in English, but sometimes in Greek. But
he was more ambitious than this. So lately as February 1911, during the
course of one of our long conversations upon literature, he asked me to
suggest a task of translation on which he could engage. It was just the
moment when he was particularly busy with Constitutional Free Trade and
Woman Suffrage and other public topics, but that made no difference. It
had always seemed to me that he had been most happy in his versions of
the Bucolic poets, and so I urged him to continue his translations by
attempting the _Europa_ of Moschus. He looked at it, and pronounced it
unattractive. I was therefore not a little surprised to receive a
letter, on March 25th, in which he said:--
"Not sleeping very well last night, I composed in my head these few
lines merely as a specimen to begin _Europa_:--
"When dawn is nigh, at the third watch of night,
What time, more sweet than honey of the bee,
Sleep courses through the brain some vision bright,
To lift the veil which hides futurity,
Fair Cypris sent a fearful dream to mar
The slumbers of a maid whose frightened eyes
Pictured the direful clash of horrid war,
And she, Europa, was the victor's prize."
"They are, of course, only a first attempt, and I do not think much
of them myself. But do you think the sort of style and metre
suitable?"
He went steadily on till he completed the poem, and on April 27th I
received a packet endorsed "Patched-up Moschus returned herewith." So
far as I know, this version of the _Europa_, conducted with great spirit
in his seventieth year, has never been published. It is the longest and
most ambitious of all his poetical experiments.
Lord Cromer was fond of saying that he considered the main beauty of
Greek poetry to reside in its simplicity. In all his verses he aimed at
limpidity and ease. He praised the Greek poets for not rhapsodising
about the beauties of nature, and this was very characteristic of his
own eighteenth-century habit of mind. His general attitude to poetry,
which he read incessantly and in four languages, was a little difficult
to define. He was ready to give lists of his life-long prime favourites,
and, as was very natural, these differed from time to time. But one list
of the books he had "read more frequently than any other" consisted of
the _Iliad_, the Book of Job, _Tristram Shandy_, and _Pickwick_, to
which he added _Lycidas_ and the Tenth Satire of Juvenal. It would
require a good deal of ingenuity to bring these six masterpieces into
line. He was consistent in declaring that the 28th chapter of Job was
"the finest bit of poetry ever written."
He was violently carried away in 1912 by reading Mr. Livingstone's book
on _The Greek Genius_. It made him a little regret the pains he had
expended on the Hymns of Callimachus and the Bucolics of Theocritus,
and he thought that perhaps he ought to have confined himself to the
severer and earlier classics. But surely he had followed his instinct,
and it would have been a pity if he had narrowed his range. It was the
modernness of the Alexandrian authors, and perhaps their Egyptian
flavour, which had justly attracted him. He did not care very much for
an antiquity which he could not revivify for his own vision. I urged him
to read a book which had fascinated me, _The Religion of Numa_, by a
learned American, the late Mr. Jesse Carter. Lord Cromer read it with
respect, but he admitted that those earliest Roman ages were too remote
and cold for him.
Lord Cromer was very much annoyed with Napoleon for having laid it down
that _apres soixante ans, un homme ne vaut rien_. The rash dictum had
certainly no application to himself. It is true that, under the strain
of the long tropical years, his bodily health declined as he approached
the age of sixty. But his mental activity, his marvellous receptivity,
were not merely maintained, but seemed steadily to advance. He continued
to be consumed by that lust for knowledge, _libido sciendi_, which he
admired in the ancient Greeks. When the physicians forbade him, four
years ago, to expend his failing strength any longer on political and
social propaganda, instead of retiring, as most men of his age would
have done, to dream in the recesses of his library, he plunged with
renewed ardour into the one occupation still permitted to him:
literature. The accident of his publishing a criticism which excited
wide popular attention led to his becoming, when past his seventieth
birthday, a "regular reviewer" for the _Spectator_, where the very
frequent papers signed "C." became a prominent feature. Those articles
were, perhaps, most remarkable for the light they threw on the writer's
own temperament, on his insatiable desire for knowledge. Lord Cromer's
curiosity in all intellectual directions was, to the last, like that of
a young man beginning his mental career; and when he adopted the
position, so uncommon in a man of his experience and authority, of a
reviewer of current books, it was because he wished to share with others
the excitement he himself enjoyed in the tapping of fresh sources of
information.
III
THE LAST DAYS OF LORD REDESDALE
The publication of Lord Redesdale's _Memories_--which was one of the
most successful autobiographies of recent times--familiarised thousands
of readers with the principal adventures of a very remarkable man, but,
when all was said and done, left an incomplete impression of his taste
and occupations on the minds of those who were not familiar with his
earlier writings. His literary career had been a very irregular one. He
took up literature rather late, and produced a book that has become a
classic--_Tales of Old Japan_. He did not immediately pursue this
success, but became involved in public activities of many kinds, which
distracted his attention. In his sixtieth year he brought out _The
Bamboo Garden_, and from that time--until, in his eightieth year, he
died in full intellectual energy--he constantly devoted himself to the
art of writing. His zeal, his ambition, were wonderful; but it was
impossible to overlook the disadvantage from which that ambition and
that zeal suffered in the fact that for the first sixty years of his
life the writer had cultivated the art but casually and sporadically. He
retained, in spite of all the labour which he expended, a certain
stiffness, an air of the amateur, of which he himself was always acutely
conscious.
This did not interfere with the direct and sincere appeal made to
general attention by the 1915 _Memories_, a book so full of geniality
and variety, so independent in its judgments and so winning in its
ingenuousness, that its wider popularity could be the object of no
surprise. But, to those who knew Lord Redesdale intimately, it must
always appear that his autobiography fails to explain him from what we
may call the subjective point of view. It tells us of his adventures and
his friendships, of the strange lands he visited and of the unexpected
confidences he received, but it does not reveal very distinctly the
character of the writer. There is far more of his intellectual
constitution, of his personal tastes and mental habits, in the volume of
essays of 1912, called _A Tragedy in Stone_, but even here much is left
unsaid and even unsuggested.
Perhaps the most remarkable fact about Lord Redesdale was the redundant
vitality of his character. His nature swarmed with life, like a drop of
pond-water under a microscope. There cannot be found room in any one
nature for all the qualities, and what he lacked in some degree was
concentration. But very few men who have lived in our complicated age
have done well in so many directions as he, or, aiming widely, have
failed in so few. He shrank from no labour and hesitated before no
difficulty, but pushed on with an extraordinary energy along many
various lines of activity. But the two lines in which he most desired
and most determined to excel, gardening and authorship, are scarcely to
be discerned, except below the surface, in his _Memories_. Next to his
books, what he regarded with most satisfaction was his wonderful garden
at Batsford, and of this there is scarcely a word of record in the
autobiography. He had always intended to celebrate this garden, and when
he was preparing to return to Batsford in 1915 he wrote to me that he
was going to write an _Apologia pro Horto meo_, as long before he had
composed one _pro Banibusis meis_. A book which should combine with the
freest fancies of his intellect a picture of the exotic groves of
Batsford was what was required to round off Lord Redesdale's literary
adventures. It will be seen that he very nearly succeeded in thus
setting the top-stone on his literary edifice.
One reason, perhaps, why Batsford, which was ever present to his
thoughts, is so very slightly and vaguely mentioned in Lord Redesdale's
_Memories_, may be the fact that from 1910 onwards he was not living in
it himself, and that it was irksome to him to magnify in print
horticultural beauties which were for the time being in the possession
of others. The outbreak of the war, in which all his five sons were
instantly engaged, was the earliest of a series of changes which
completely altered the surface of Lord Redesdale's life. Batsford came
once more into his personal occupation, and at the same time it became
convenient to give up his London house in Kensington Court. Many things
combined to transform his life in the early summer of 1915. His eldest
son, Major the Hon. Clement Mitford, after brilliantly distinguishing
himself in battle, was received by the King and decorated, to the
rapturous exultation of his father. Major Mitford returned to the French
front, only to fall on May 13th, 1915.
At this time I was seeing Lord Redesdale very frequently, and I could
not but be struck by the effect of this blow upon his temperament. After
the first shock of sorrow, I observed in him the determination not to
allow himself to be crushed. His dominant vitality asserted itself
almost with violence, and he seemed to clench his tooth in defiance of
the assault on his individuality. It required on the part of so old a
man no little fortitude, for it is easier to bear a great and heroic
bereavement than to resist the wearing vexation of seeing one's system
of daily occupation crumbling away. Lord Redesdale was pleased to be
going again to Batsford, which had supplied him in years past with so
much sumptuous and varied entertainment, but it was a matter of alarm
with him to give up all, or almost all, the various ties with London
which had meant so much to his vividly social nature.
Meanwhile, during the early months of 1915 in London, he had plenty of
employment in finishing and revising his _Memories_, which it had taken
him two years to write. This was an occupation which bridged over the
horrid chasm between his old active life in London, with its thousand
interests, and the uncertain and partly dreaded prospect of exile in the
bamboo-gardens of a remote corner of Gloucestershire, where he foresaw
that deafness must needs exclude him from the old activities of local
life.
He finished revising the manuscript of his _Memories_ in July, and then
went down, while the actual transference of his home was taking place,
to the Royal Yacht Squadron Castle, Cowes, where he had been accustomed
to spend some of the most enjoyable hours of his life. But this scene,
habitually thronged with people, and palpitating with gaiety, in the
midst of which Lord Redesdale found himself so singularly at home, was
now, more than perhaps any other haunt of the English sportsman, in
complete eclipse. The weather was lovely, but there were no yachts, no
old chums, no charming ladies. "It is very dull," he wrote; "the sole
inhabitant of the Club besides myself was Lord Falkland, and now he is
gone." In these conditions Lord Redesdale became suddenly conscious that
the activity of the last two or three years was over, that the aspect of
his world had changed, and that he was in danger of losing that hold
upon life to which he so resolutely clung. In conditions of this kind he
always turned to seek for something mentally "craggy," as Byron said,
and at Cowes he wonderfully found the writings of Nietzsche. The result
is described in a remarkable letter to myself (July 28th, 1915), which
I quote because it marks the earliest stage in the composition of his
last unfinished book:--
"I have been trying to occupy myself with Nietzsche, on the theory
that there must be something great about a man who exercised the
immense influence that he did. But I confess I am no convert to any
of his various moods. Here and there I find gems of thought, but
one has to wade through a morass of blue mud to get at them. Here
is a capital saying of his which may be new to you--in a letter to
his friend Rohde he writes: 'Eternally we need midwives in order to
be delivered of our thoughts,' We cannot work in solitude. 'Woe to
us who lack the sunlight of a friend's presence.'
"How true that is! When I come down here, I think that with so much
time on my hands I shall be able to get through a pile of work. Not
a bit of it! I find it difficult even to write a note. To me it is
an imperative necessity to have the sympathetic counsel of a
friend."
The letter continued with an impassioned appeal to his correspondent to
find some definite intellectual work for him to undertake. "You make me
dare, and that is much towards winning a game. You must sharpen my wits,
which are blunt enough just now." In short, it was a cry from the island
of boredom to come over the water and administer first-aid.
Accordingly, I started for Cowes, and was welcomed at the pier with all
my host's habitual and vivacious hospitality. Scarcely were we seated in
our wicker-chairs in face of the Solent, not twinkling as usual with
pleasure-sails, but sinister with strange instruments of warfare, than
he began the attack. "What am I to do with myself?" was the instant
question; "what means can I find of occupying this dreadful void of
leisure?" To which the obvious reply was: "First of all, you must
exhibit to me the famous attractions of Cowes!" "There are none," he
replied in comic despair, but we presently invented some, and my visit,
which extended over several radiant days of a perfect August, was
diversified with walks and excursions by land and water, in which my
companion was as active and as ardent as though he had been nineteen
instead of seventy-nine. In a suit picturesquely marine, with his
beautiful silver hair escaping from a jaunty yachting cap, he was the
last expression of vivacity and gaiety.
The question of his intellectual occupation in the future came, however,
incessantly to the front; and our long talks in the strange and uncanny
solitude of the Royal Yacht Squadron Castle always came to this: What
task was he to take up next? His large autobiography was now coming back
to him from the printers in packets of proof, with which he was closeted
night and morning; and I suggested that while this was going on there
was no need for him to think about future enterprises. To tell the
truth, I had regarded the _Memories_ as likely to be the final labour of
Lord Redesdale's busy life. It seemed to me that at his advanced age he
might now well withdraw into dignified repose. I even hinted so much in
terms as delicate as I could make them, but the suggestion was not well
received. I became conscious that there was nothing he was so little
prepared to welcome as "repose"; that, in fact, the terror which
possessed him was precisely the dread of having to withdraw from the
stage of life. His deafness, which now began to be excessive, closed to
his eager spirit so many of the avenues of experience, that he was more
than ever anxious to keep clear those that remained to him, and of
these, literary expression came to be almost the only one left. In the
absence of a definite task his path in this direction led through
darkness.
But it was not until after several suggestions and many conversations
that light was found. The friend so pressingly appealed to returned to
London, where he was stern in rejecting several projects, hotly flung at
his head and then coldly abandoned. A study of the Empress Maria
Theresa, suggested by a feverish perusal of Pechler, was the latest and
least attractive of these. Lord Redesdale then frankly demanded that a
subject should be found for him. "You have brought this upon yourself,"
he said, "by encouraging me to write." What might prove the scheme of a
very pleasant book then occurred to me, and I suggested to the fiery and
impatient author, who had by this time retired for good to Batsford,
that he should compose a volume of essays dealing with things in
general, but bound together by a constantly repeated reference to his
wild garden of bamboos and the Buddha in his secret grove. The author
was to suppose himself seated with a friend on the terrace at the top of
the garden, and to let the idea of the bamboo run through the whole
tissue of reflections and reminiscences like an emerald thread. Lord
Redesdale was enchanted, and the idea took fire at once. He replied:--
"You are Orpheus, with his lute moving the rocks and stones! I
shall work all my conceits into your plan, and am now proceeding to
my garden shrine to meditate on it. I will try to make a picture of
the VELUVANA, the bamboo-garden which was the first Vikara or
monastery of Buddha and his disciples. There I will sit, and,
looking on the great statue of Buddha in meditation, I shall begin
to arrange all sorts of wild imaginings which may come into my
crazy brain."
In this way was started the book, of which, alas! only such fragments
were composed as form the earlier part of the volume published after his
death. It is, however, right to point out that for the too-brief
remainder of his life Lord Redesdale was eagerly set on the scheme of
which a hint has just been given. The _Veluvana_ was to be the crowning
production of his literary life, and it was to sum up the wisdom of the
East and the gaiety of the West. He spoke of it incessantly, in letters
and conversation. "That will do to go into _Veluvana_," was his cry when
he met with anything rare or strange. For instance, on September 15th,
1915, he wrote to me:--
"To-day, all of a sudden I was struck by the idea that plants,
having many human qualities, may also in some degree have human
motives--that they are not altogether mere automata--and as I
thought, I began to imagine that I could detect something
resembling purpose in the movements of certain plants. I have
jotted down a few notes, and you will see when I expand them that
at any rate the idea calls attention to the movements themselves,
some of which seem never to have been noticed at all, or certainly
at best very inadequately. You will see that this brings in the
bamboo-garden and Buddha, and so keeps to the scheme of
_Veluvana_."